The result of last week’s byelection in Montreal proves there’s no such thing as a safe seat in politics. Liberal organizers also made a classic error: pushing aside viable local candidates for hand-picked head-office replacements.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 23, 2024.

OTTAWA—As prime minister Justin Trudeau struggles to defend his future plans, he should step back and reflect on one thing.

All the troubles the Liberals are currently facing are self-inflicted.

The first huge error was to believe that replacing two highly-respected senior cabinet ministers with newbies would enhance the party’s election chances.

When Trudeau chose to demote then-justice minister David Lametti and send Carolyn Bennett to the diplomatic corps, he was counting on the belief that both occupied so-called “safe” Liberal seats.

The result of last week’s byelection in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, Que., proves one thing.

There is no such thing as a safe seat in politics.

Liberal organizers also committed a classic error in both ridings, pushing aside viable local candidates for hand-picked head-office replacements.

In Toronto-St.Paul’s, Leslie Church—an Ottawa insider—was the chosen one. Several popular local candidates wanted to run for the nomination, but were not given the chance to compete fairly.

In Montreal, nominee Laura Palestini was a well-known local councillor. But there were others who wanted to seek the nomination when Lametti stepped down to return to the legal profession.

National campaign co-chair Soraya Martinez Ferrada told Radio Canada last summer that Palestini was hand-picked by the party, bypassing an open nomination process.

Privately, she explained to disgruntled Liberals that the party preferred directed democracy.

But that decision meant that several long-term riding activists sat out the election, and in a race as tight as the one we saw on the evening of Sept. 16, their absence was costly.

The best way to ensure a candidate has the support of the riding is to allow an open nomination where all prospective candidates prove their organizational prowess, as well as their ability to connect with the community.

In both byelections, head office chose the candidates, and that left a bad taste in people’s mouths.

The self-inflicted wound of trying to direct democracy was coupled with a political calculation that has cost the Liberals dearly.

In the July 2023 cabinet shuffle, three senior ministers were moved out, supposedly to reboot the party fortunes.

Not coincidentally, new cabinet choices depended on how the changes might help electorally.

In Ottawa, former minister Mona Fortier occupied what is supposed to be another safe seat.

The exits of Fortier, Lametti, and Bennett were all supposed to ensure a better political positioning for the Liberals.

Lametti’s departure set the stage for the ministerial appointments of Tourism Minister Martinez Ferrada, and Justice Minister Arif Virani.

Both hail from minority communities, and it was thought that their promotions—like that of Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez—would increase party chances in Latin-American, Muslim, and Filipino communities. Fortier’s replacement with Jenna Sudds was intended to solidify a tough seat in west Ottawa, the thinking being that ministers are more likely to be re-elected in a tight race.

Instead, the numbers have not moved up for the Liberals, and the losses in two previous strongholds have further damaged the prime minister’s staying power.

The notion that ministerial status improves electability is also debatable.

Back in 1984, when I was the only Liberal elected between Toronto and Windsor, the ministerial moniker hurt rather than helped.

At that time, the party had governed for so long that anyone associated with a ministry was actually in greater danger of defeat.

The only reason I was able to win my seat was that I had come from the provincial legislature, and as a new candidate, I had the benefit of saying that I represented change.

In a change election, people vote for change. And if you are too closely associated with the previous government that can hurt rather than help.

The Liberal cabinet reset, carried out more than a year ago, has not improved the party’s standing.

There is a mood in the country that people want change. For better or for worse, they are not focusing on Pierre Poilievre’s destructive policies.

Instead, they are telling the Liberals they want new faces. Trudeau is trying to warn Canadians: “be careful what you wish for.”

Meanwhile, some Liberal organizers are actively seeking to cherry-pick their candidates, and to slow the nomination process for others.

Long-time Members of Parliament like Judy Sgro have fulfilled all the requirements for renomination, but still haven’t been given the green light.

If the party takes one lesson from these byelections, it is this: There is no such thing as a safe seat. And the best way to win an election is for the party to stay out of it.

Let local Liberals decide.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

First published in The Hill Times on Monday, March 20, 2017.

OTTAWA—Politics is at its worst in political parties.

Internal decisions are usually made in secret with little recourse to the rules of due process that apply to normal business decisions.

That may change, as a disgruntled New Democrat took his case to the courts last week after his party would not allow him to run for the leadership.

Court documents filed last Wednesday say it is the first time in history that the NDP has prevented someone from running for the leadership.

Brian Graff, a former Liberal who joined the party last August, was informed in late December that he could not be a candidate. He was given 48 hours to appeal the decision.

His appeal was dismissed without any “reasons, explanation or basis for their decision” according to court documents. Graff’s lawyer, Nader Hasan, applied for a judicial review, complaining that the internal appeal process was flawed.

He told The Globe and Mail that while political parties have the right to choose their nominees “We’re saying that, if they want to vet out people, they at least have to respect basic principles of procedural fairness in a transparent and open way.”

If the courts rule in Graff’s favour, it could have wide-ranging implications for all political parties in Canada.

We saw from afar, via leaked Democratic National Committee emails, to what lengths party officials were willing to go to tilt the process in favour of the preferred choice of the establishment.

The dubiousness of the DNC decision to marginalize Bernie Sanders played out in the election. The insider rebuff of Sanders played into the hands of Donald Trump, who won the election, in part, because of Democratic hubris.

Similar warning signs surfaced in recent Liberal Party decisions involving byelection nominations.

Decisions were made which served to tilt the nomination process in the races to replace outgoing ministers, John McCallum and Stéphane Dion. Notwithstanding public protestations to the contrary, non-transparent internal steps were taken that served to benefit party-preferred candidates, facing tough nomination battles.

In one case, the meddling backfired. The popular mayor of St. Laurent, Alan DeSousa, was deemed ineligible to run by the party’s vetting committee. That move ostensibly paving the way for party favourite and former provincial minister Yolande James. Instead, DeSousa’s 26-year-old assistant, Emmanuella Lambropoulos, whose candidacy was green lighted, surprised everyone by winning the nomination.

By any standards, former PMO staffer Mary Ng, and former Quebec provincial minister Yolande James would both have been excellent candidates. They are young, articulate and reflect the diversity of Canada’s population.

But party meddling handed them a poisoned chalice.

In Ng’s case, the party approved a retroactive voting process resulting in the disallowance of 1,500 memberships sold by her chief opponent.

Ng’s obvious talents may help her overcome the rocky beginning of a controversial nomination victory two weeks ago. But party actions in both nominations have soured volunteers.

The moves provoked a hot debate among Liberals. Jack Siegel, former co-chair of the Liberal constitutional and legal affairs committee, defended the party on his Facebook page. He claimed “the Liberal Party has had retroactive blind cut-offs for close to 25 years,” using it as a means to prevent “dumping thousands of forms at the deadline, keeping their signups secret and overloading the party’s membership systems with the flood of forms, all in urgent need of inputting.”

Siegel was deeply involved in the nomination which prompted my departure from politics. He oversaw a decision to count 500 unsigned ballots that had not been initialed by the returning officer. The membership system in the party offices was so ‘overloaded’ that, just before midnight, an official deleted 378 eligible Liberals from the voting list. Party officials wanted to ensure the nomination of my opponent, who was the leader’s choice.

I was not the only one who exited Parliament under a cloud. Rigged nominations across the country ultimately poisoned the volunteer base. Many diehard Liberals dropped out of the party and two million of them stayed home when Prime Minister Paul Martin lost the election to Conservative Stephen Harper.

Thanks to the NDP complaint, the courts may ultimately decide that political parties need to establish rigorous, transparent processes so their decisions are not just seen to be arbitrary or biased.

Retroactive cutoffs, and green light committees with no public transparency or accountability, turn voters off.

More important, they turn party members off. As a volunteer, if you are not allowed to participate in a nomination, you may just take a pass on an election.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.